Since I Was Abandoned After Reincarnating, I Will Cook With My Fluffy Friends: The Figurehead Queen Is Strongest At Her Own Pace, Vol. 1

Leave a reply

By Yu Sakurai and Kasumi Nagi. Released in Japan as “Tenseisaki de Suterareta no de, Mofumofu-tachi to Oryouri Shimasu: Okazari Ouhi wa My Pace ni Saikyou desu” by M Novels F. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Emma Schumacker.

I always appreciate it when a series takes the effort to do convincing setup… well, convincing enough. This is still a reincarnated as an otome game villainess series, so I’m not asking for 100% realism, or even a thing I haven’t seen before. But you want the book to be interesting enough that you will say “yes, I will add this to my stack of villainess novels to follow”, and that’s where Fluffy Friends delivers. (If you think I’m typing out that full title again, you’re crazy.) It’s definitely a series in things for the long haul – we don’t even get to cooking with the fluffy friends till halfway through the book, and by the end of the book she still doesn’t know her husband’s big secret. But it sets out its worldbuilding, it explains why Laetitia is the way she is and why everyone thought she was evil, and her life does not magically get super easy after the memories come back.

When we first meet Laetitia,. she’s been shoved into a fountain by her fiancee, and things don’t get better from there. Despite making perfectly rational explanations for her behavior, everyone seems to be hating her and loving the other girl who’s accusing her of bullying. And so our heroine decides to simply retreat, and her father (who is 100% in her corner) arranges for her to marry the king of a nearby area, who has a reputation for hating women but needs a figurehead queen to fend off fiancees. That’s fine with Laetitia, who, now that she can recall her past life, wants to start doing what she did while in Japan: cook! That said, the cooking may also get her in trouble, as her new home not only is home to a combination of humans and beastkin, but they are at political loggerheads with each other, and even a chiffon cake can be a lethal weapon.

First off, I said “otome game villainess” was the arc, but there’s no game involved here – this isn’t a thing the heroine played in Japan or anything. That said, the way that her memories of her former life and her current life mesh together is possibly the smoothest we’ve ever seen it in these sorts of books. Laetitia does not suddenly have a different personality, nor does she have to deal with confusing new customs. Instead, it’s as if her Japanese life was unconsciously with her all along, and now she can access it. She’s also pretty overpowered for a book like this – she lacks the ability to automatically make everyone fall in love with her that a lot of these type of heroines do, but that’s OK, as she’s smart, powerful at magic, and very good at political mindgames. And, of course, there’s the relationship with her new husband, which is still mostly hypothetical here, but it’s clear that he’s going to be falling for her first.

This is mostly a serious minded slow-life romance, with the one bit of great humor coming when Laetitia’s father has to explain to her how she, like he, has a complete inability to fake a smile and just looks evil. Still, Laetitia is a terrific character, and there are a few others I found more interesting than I expected, such as Natalie, one of the king’s four marriage candidates. I realize that the pile of villainess titles to read is getting pretty high, but you should be adding this one to the stack.

Banner of the Stars: Thunder of the Empire

Leave a reply

By Hiroyuki Morioka and Toshihiro Ono. Released in Japan by Hayakawa Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Giuseppe di Martino.

And so we finally catch up with Banner of the Stars, a series whose last three volumes have come out over the course of the last twenty years, so I’m not sure when the next one in the series will be. This book takes place ten years after the last one, though honestly it took the author telling me that to actually make me understand it. The Abh are long-lived and don’t really age, so there’s a certain stasis to their lives, and it makes it hard to get a real sense of time. As for this book in particular, it’s very good news for those who love long, detailed descriptions of space battles, though as always these are somewhat remote, vaguely realistic space battles taken on by dry, sarcastic space elves, so don’t expect dramatic pew pew laser fights and heroes screaming out as they are killed. What we get instead is the Abh slowly trying to take back what they lost, and to regain contact with the other half of their split Empire, which is also trying its best.

Unlike the last book, Lafier gets quite a bit to do, as she’s promoted from training the new troops (which she’s been doing since the end of the previous book) to having a fleet of her own, whose job it is to retake the capital!… wait, no, that’s not its job, much to Lafier’s irritation. Instead they’re going after a different strategic site, trying to gauge the strength of the enemy, take out the enemy, force the enemy’s leaders to surrender, and seize the day. This is not quite as easy as it sounds… but it mostly is, with the Abh winning fairly one-sidedly. The drama comes from, as I said, Lafier not being a very happy camper. She’s still inexperienced for an Abh, and knows she would not have her own fleet if she weren’t Crown Princess. She has a minder on board, with orders to relieve her of duty if she screws up. And Jint, who is still by her side, is, well, starting to look older than her.

While talking about this book on Twitter, I noted that folks who started the series reading about the adventures of Jint and Lafier, who were hoping for more scenes of them together like we saw in Crest, are probably very disappointed by now, as it’s clear that’s not remotely what the author wants to write about at the moment. It was also pointed out to me that I don’t think like an Abh, and by their standards Jint and Lafier are sickening sweethearts, which is also true, I suppose. (We do see some good shots of Sporr and Cfadiss, which is the only other relationship we see in this series anything like the one Jint and Lafier have, and I appreciated it.) That said, Lafier does think about the fact that, as the years go on, Jint is going to look older and older and she isn’t. I’m not sure that makes her happy, but not much she can do about it. Still, any furthering of the romance will likely have to wait for the end of the war.

When will that end? Well, we’re not sure, as the next book isn’t out in Japan yet. This came out in 2018. I am hoping the gap between books will be more like the 5 year gap between 5 and 6, rather than the 9-year-gap between 4 and 5. till then, this is recommended for science fiction readers who like reading about military tactics.

The Matchmaking of Marielle Clarac

Leave a reply

By Haruka Momo and Maro. Released in Japan as “Marielle Clarac no Kyuuai” by Ichijinsha Bunko Iris NEO. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Philip Reuben.

The author describes this book as a “calm and gentle” story, and I suppose, given that the previous book involved Marielle getting involved with pirates and her wedding had her kidnapped, falling into a river, etc. that that is correct. In reality, all it means is that all the action and danger to our heroine is packed into the last quarter of the book. Heck, even the main storyline in the book has Julianne, Marielle’s friend and BL reader, accused of attempting to poison the royal family. When you are the light novel equivalent of Murder, She Wrote, calm and gentle seems like a long time ago. That said, this novel also serves as a reminder that the only thing worse than the attitude of nobles towards commoners is the attitude of greater nobles towards lesser nobles. Marielle had to deal with this as well, of course, but at least Simeon was only an Earl. When the Prince of the Realm is head over heels in love with you, and your parents are social climbers, it can be quite the headache…

Marielle is happy as a clam as the book starts, but inevitably gets dragged into this mess. After all, Simeon and the Prince are friends, and she and Julianne are friends. She’s the reason the two even met in the first place. And the Prince is now doing his best to not act like a pathetic drip. Mostly. So it’s time to meet the parents, who are worried that a girl from a lesser barony winning over their son means she has intentions other than love. This is not helped by Julianne herself, who is firmly convinced that their classes are too far apart, and is in general far too practical to simply leap into something like this. The answer, of course, is to have Marielle around, as she is both very much a part of the royal world now and also frequently the opposite of practical. Can she get Julianne to admit her own feelings, get the King and Queen to learn what type of person she is, and not get stabbed preventing an assassination attempt? Note: the answer to the last question is no.

Yeah, as noted, this book leaves all its thriller aspects for the last quarter, and spends most of the time in mystery and romance mode. The King and Queen are both very likeable people – indeed, the whole royal family is pretty great – and the moral of the first 3/4 of the book might just be “don’t assume everyone loves dogs”. But there has always been the threat of war and politics lurking at the edge of this series, if not directly involved with it, and there is a definite anti-monarchist faction, which decides to take more decisive action. It is rather startling to see Marielle, who I have previously described as a flibbertigibbet sustain a serious injury in this book, though in best action heroine style this does not stop her from sticking around till everything is resolved before passing out. Heck, she even does the “I can’t run in this dress” clothing rip!

So yes, another strong volume, and fans of Marielle who notice that she doesn’t fangirl QUITE as much in this book will, I suspect, get more of what they want to balance it in Book 7. Will the nation go to war? And can Marielle find a way to write romance novel about it?